Power Exchange
220 Jones Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
220 Jones Street,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
5 people
favorited this theater
Related Websites
Power Exchange (Official)
Additional Info
Functions: Live Performances
Previous Names: Screening Room, Savages Theatre, Campus All Male Theatre, Chez Paree, Pink Diamonds
Nearby Theaters
This converted storefront opened as the Screening Room on April 10, 1967 with “Sylvia’s Girls” & “Girls-A-Poppin”. It operated for a couple of months then closed down. It reopened on March 2, 1968 with “The Vampire Goes Courting” as one of the first theatres in San Francisco that showed hardcore porn. (Numerous other “storefront” theatres would open in the late-1960’s and 1970’s throughout San Francisco and several other cities.) Initially, the program would consist of 16mm silent loops with a record providing musical accompaniment, but eventually 16mm full-length features would take off.
In 1970, theatre owner Alex DeRenzy exhibited what was the first full-length hard porn feature, a “documentary” called “Pornography in Denmark: A New Approach”. This feature, premiered at his North Beach Movie, before transferring to the Screening Room, where it grossed $25,000 in its first week in exhibition (It would eventually gross over $2 million). The success of this theatre would lead to De Renzy operating other theatres in San Francisco for a time: North Beach Movie(another storefront theatre), Presidio Theatre (converting this neighborhood art theatre into a porn house), Centre Theatre (a Market Street second-run house converted into hard porn), and briefly the Regal Theatre on Market Street (converting from grindhouse to porn house–he operated it for about a year before the Mitchell Brothers took over–Incidentally, the Mitchell Brothers started their O'Farrell Theatre after seeing how successful the Screening Room was doing.)
De Renzy, also a prominent pornographic filmmaker between 1967-early-2000’s, would run the Screening Room until the early-1980’s, when it converted to gay porn as Savages Theatre on September 15, 1982 and later gay live shows under the name of the Campus All-Male Theatre. By 1986, it was still screening all-male XXX films.
An operator changed the place to a female strip club called Chez Paree, which met some opposition from a pastor who is operating a religious school next door. It then operated as a ‘gentleman’s club’ known as Pink Diamonds. From 2010 it became a sex club named the Power Exchange.
Contributed by
scottfavareille
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
Not quite the movie palace.
>> De Renzy, also a prominant pornographic filmmaker between 1967-early 2000’s, would run the Screening Room until the early 1980’s, when it converted to gay porn and later gay live shows under the name of the Campus All-Male Theater. By 1986, it had been renamed Savages Theatre, still screening all-male XXX films>>
Some of this is inaccurate. It was not called the Campus in the early ‘80s. I was a cashier/projectionist there in 1981-1982. When I began in 1981, the theater was called The Screening Room and had been for some time. It was then a run-down porno theater catering mostly to old men. A few months into my employment, new owners, or at least new managers, from Chicago, came in and did a makeover, trying to transform it into a “hot” club that would attract a younger, trendier crowd. (This only partially happened; who wanted to go down to the dicey Tenderloin, when you could go to Folsom or Castro St. sex clubs, where the fee was also cheaper?) The place was repainted all in black and neon orange and renamed Savages. Live strip shows were held on the smallish stage below the screen. I often worked the lights from the projectionist booth upstairs. At the premiere of Savages, the porn star Richard Locke came and did a live show (and gave a safe sex talk — probably one of the first-ever). The basement was renovated and turned into a sort of sex club, with a maze, a wrestling pit with bleachers (for the “cock fight” wrestling matches), a giant bed, slings, etc. Most of the staff was wacked on meth and/or MDA. I must be the only one who didn’t die from aids or overdose.
Mid-1982 … the Screening Room Cinema tried to change its image (as pionted out above) and attract a younger patronage. A well publisized gay extravaganza was presented with three popular gay screen stars live on stage. Also for this show five fresh new strippers were brought in for this program. One extremely handsome stripper named Tex stopped the show when he caused more of a sensation than the porn stars, and he really raked in the tips too. Such a large SRO crowd caused the fire dept to raid the theatre midway through the performance for violating fire hazard rules by packing in so many men.
(Shortly thereafter Tex starred in a couple of porn movies under the name Danny DelaRosa, but for one reason or another his stage appeal didn’t translate to film)
“Hello, and thanks for calling the All New Campus Theater, home of the renowned Varsity Strip Squad and featuring the hottest and horniest performers on the West Coast. They are Live on stage and in the audience, all nude, all hard and all for you! The Campus Theater is located at 220 Jones Street in downtown San Francisco. Maybe you’ve tried the rest but isn’t it time you tried the BEST? For the absolute BEST in all male entertainment, the All New Campus Theater! See you here!”
The information listed above is incorrect. The name progression was Screening Room then Savages (Abdul Droubi owner) and then Campus Theatre ( Steven Downard, owner, later bought by Habib Carouba (Market Street Cinema)who kept the Campus name. After that I am not sure, as I was no longer affiliated with it. I managed the theater for a few years under both Steve Downard and Habib. I would be interested in communicating with DiscoSurvivor to share some information.
Former owner of this and Market Street Cinema has passed away.
http://hoodline.com/2016/11/rip-habib-carouba-a-san-francisco-porn-pioneer
The first ad for this cinema as “Screening room” appeared on March 2nd, 1968 in the Chronicle with “The Vampire goes courting” and Selected Beavers. Ad in photo section.
Reopened as Savages on September 15th, 1982. Tiny ad posted.
Actually, the earliest listing for the Screening Room at 220 Jones is from April 10th, 1967 with a color double bill of Sylvia’s Girls and Girls A-Poppin'. It seems to have operated as such (showcasing double bills of color features) for about two months in 1967. Then, there is a gap. Eventually, it reemerges in 1968 showcasing beavershorts. (btw, Pornography in Denmark was released in 1970, not in 1968, and it premiered at North Beach, not at the Screening Room.)
This is no longer the Campus All-Male theatre.
It is the Power Exchange (as noted in bio from 2010)
Website is https://www.powerexchange.com/